Description

In this book, contributors have been brought together to discuss the role of two major factors shaping the grammars of different varieties of English (and of other languages) all over the world: so-called vernacular universals and contact-induced change. Rather than assuming a general typological perspective, the studies in this volume focus on putative universal vernacular features – significant phonological or (morpho-) syntactic parallels found in non-standard varieties of English, English-based Creoles, and also varieties of other languages, all of which represent widely differing sociolinguistic and historical backgrounds. These universals are then set against the other major explanatory factor: contact-induced change, by which we understand both the possibility of dialect contact (or dialect diffusion) and language contact (including superstratal, substratal and adstratal influences).

Table of Contents

Vernacular Universals and Language Contacts: An Overview Markku Filppula, Juhani Klemola and Heli Paulasto Part I: The Theory of Vernacular Universals Chapter 1: Cognition and the Linguistic Continuum from Vernacular to Standard J.K. Chambers Chapter 2: Vernacular Universals and Angloversals in a Typological Perspective Benedikt Szmrecsanyi and Bernd Kortmann Part II: Consonant Cluster Reduction and Default Singulars: Prototypical Vernacular Universals? Chapter 3: How Diagnostic are English Universals? Daniel Schreier Chapter 4: Number Agreement in Existential Constructions: A Sociolinguistic Study of Eighteenth-Century English Terttu Nevalainen Chapter 5: There was Universals; then there weren’t: A Comparative Sociolinguistic Perspective on ‘Default Singulars’ Sali A. Tagliamonte Part III: Universals and Contact in Varieties of English Chapter 6: Irish Daughters of Northern British Relatives: Internal and External Constraints on the System of Relativisation in South Armagh English (SArE) Karen P. Corrigan Chapter 7 The Case of Bungi: Evidence for Vernacular Universals Elaine Gold Chapter 8: The Regularisation of the Hiatus Resolution System in British English – A Contact-Induced ‘Vernacular Universal’? David Britain and Sue Fox Chapter 9: The Interplay of ‘Universals’ and Contact-Induced Change in the Emergence of New Englishes Donald Winford Chapter 10: Digging for Roots: Universals and Contact in Regional Varieties of English Markku Filppula, Juhani Klemola and Heli Paulasto Part IV: Methodological and Theoretical Perspectives Chapter 11: Methods and Inferences in the Study of Substrate Influence Terence Odlin Chapter 12: Some Offspring of Colonial English are Creole Salikoko S. Mufwene Chapter 13: Vernacular Universals and the Sociolinguistic Typology of English Dialects Peter Trudgill Chapter 14: Linguistic Universals and Vernacular Data Peter Siemund Chapter 15: Why Universals VERSUS Contact-Induced Change? Sarah G. Thomason

About the Editors

Markku Filppula is Professor of English at the University of Joensuu and a member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters. He is the author of The Grammar of Irish English: Language in Hibernian Style (1999), co-author of English and Celtic in Contact (2008), co-editor of The Celtic Roots of English (2002) and Dialects Across Borders (2005).

Juhani Klemola is Professor of English at the University of Tampere. He was awarded his PhD by the University of Essex in 1996. He is co-author of English and Celtic in Contact (2008), co-editor of Speech Past and Present: Studies in English Dialectology in Memory of Ossi Ihalainen (1996), The Celtic Roots of English (2002), Dialects Across Borders (2005), and Types of Variation (2006).

Heli Paulasto is Researcher in English Language at the University of Joensuu, where she was awarded her PhD in 2006. She is author of Welsh English Syntax: Contact and Variation (2006), co-author of English and Celtic in Contact (2008), and co-editor of The Celtic Roots of English (2002).

About the Series

The Germanic languages are among the best described in the world and exhibit a considerable degree of variation. Yet, with the exception of English, their properties and structural variance have yet to be fully exploited for linguistic theory. The purpose of this series is to promote more intense interaction of general linguistics with the field of Germanic linguistics as a whole.